What's in a name?

What’s in a name?

Ua Baegill, Obogyll, Ó Baoighill, Ó Baoill, O’Boile, O’Buyle, O’Boyle, ôBoyle, Boyle.

From the 11th century, regular consistent surnames, handed on from one generation to the next to signify descent from a common ancestor became the norm in Gaelic Ireland. In many other cultures, surnames developed to indicate where someone was from, or from nicknames, or to identify their trade or profession, but Irish surnames in the main are patronymic. In the Gaelic form, nearly all are preceded by Mac (meaning ‘son of’) or Ó (originally Ua, meaning ‘grandson / descendant of’).

In some of the earliest written records of the name, it is spelled Ua Baegill (with an almost silent ‘g’); later the spelling is regularly Ó Baoighill (for English speakers, it’s pronounced Oh Bwee-ill).

Unlike many English surnames, few, if any, Irish names are based on places of origin. We can be sure then that there is no connection with the town of Boyle in County Roscommon. The town developed from a 12th century Cistercian monastery, which was situated along a river which was called in Irish An Bhuill, But it's just a coincidence that the surname and the town have both been anglicised as Boyle.

Latin was the language of the church and of international affairs, and in medieval and early modern Latin documents it occurs as Obogyll. In most Latin documents where Gaelic names appear, and in many medieval English documents, the ‘Ó’ is an integral part of the name, thus also Odonel, Oneale, etc.

Since the rationalisation of Irish spelling in the 1950s it is spelled Ó Baoill, though many Irish speakers still prefer Ó Baoighill, despite the unnecessary silent letters.

From the early 16th century the English colonial adventurers and administrators sought to extend their dominion over the Gaelic world. To them, Gaelic spelling and pronunciation was uncouth and complex, and Gaelic names were “often offensive to the sensibilities of English-speakers who regarded them as ‘rather seeming the names of devouring giants than Christian subjects’”[Farrell, 2017, p.20].

In official documents anglicized versions of Gaelic names using a rough ‘sounds-like’ approximation were adopted, with a tendency to pick an English name if one existed which was even vaguely similar.

It also became the norm in English to replace the accent on the O with an apostrophe (or sometimes a circumflex ô) so that Ó Baoighill became O’Boyle, O’Boile, O Buyle, ôBoyle or sometimes just Boyle. The surname Boyle, of Norman origin, was already in existence in England and Scotland and it may have seemed the ‘obvious’ spelling. It is probably no accident that the name was already gaining prominence in Ireland: Richard Boyle (of whom more anon) arrived from England in 1588; he and his descendants were dominant figures in the colonisation of Ireland, and it may have been his influence that ‘fixed’ the English spelling of the name.

Well into the 17th century, documents written in Gaelic such as the Annals of the Four Masters continued to use Ó Baoighill, but when these were translated into English (mainly in the 19th century) the form O’Boyle was used.

For consistency, and for the benefit of readers who don’t know Irish, that convention will be followed here. But we should not forget that that’s not what they called themselves, and even when they themselves adopted an anglicised name, it was Boyle, not O’Boyle that the majority chose.

There are certain advantages to this usage. In Gaelic documents, the leader or chief of the sept is referred to solely by the surname - Ó Baoighill. In English translation, the custom developed to indicate this position by adding the definite article, hence Ó Baoighill is translated as The O’Boyle. It should be obvious that this usage is preferable to The Boyle as it avoids some unfortunate homophonic associations!

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Boyle or O'Boyle?